Life is Beautiful (1997)

A
SDG

Life is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni’s achingly funny and
hauntingly beautiful WWII romantic comedy-tragedy about love,
family, and sacrifice, describes itself as a "fable," and so it is. The
story unfolds in two acts. In the first, Benigni is Guido, an
Italian waiter recklessly and flamboyantly courting a pretty
schoolteacher named Dora (Braschi, Benigni’s real-life wife),
whom he invariably greets with an exuberant "Buon giorno
Principessa!" (Good day, Princess!). Benigni is a hapless
clown akin to Chaplin’s Little Tramp, and Guido woos his
"principessa" the only way he can — with slapstick humor, audacious
improvisation, and outrageous sight gags.

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/Spiritual Value

Age Appropriateness

MPAA Rating

Caveat Spectator

Soon, however, we learn Guido’s secret: He is a Jew, and he
gets by from day to day relying on the same madcap strategems he
uses on Dora — even at one point impersonating an SS officer and
improvising a lecture for Italian schoolchildren on the inherent
superiority of the Aryan navel.

In the second act, Guido, Dora, and their young son Giosue
(Joshua) are deported to a concentration camp, where once again
Guido protects his son from the horrors they will face the only
way he can — with humor. Contriving to hide the boy from camp
officials (who soon put the other children to death), Guido tells
Giosue that the concentration camp is actually an elaborate
role-playing game in which the "players" are competing for points in the
hopes of winning a real battle tank. From then on, Guido will
take any risk, court any danger, to maintain his son’s illusion
that none of it is real.

In real life, of course, such a deception would not only be
wrong, it wouldn’t work for even a day. Is Benigni making light
of the Holocaust — suggesting that, with the right attitude,
Auschwitz would have been a game? Not at all. Rather, he is creating
a "fable" about love and sacrifice. For that matter, Guido’s courtship of
Dora, interpreted literally, is as preposterous as his death-camp
antics.

But the movie is not about the reality of either
courtship or death camps. It is a metaphor about the lengths to
which a man will go for those he loves, a meditation on the
beauty of life even when tragically restricted or cut short.

Postscript: Pope John Paul II saw a special viewing
of Life is Beautiful at the Vatican with Benigni. Although
Benigni lives in Rome not far from the Vatican, he had never
before seen or met the Pope, and was in California when the
Vatican contacted him, so he had to fly halfway around the world
for the meeting!